Charging car battery via cigarette lighter?

[Adam]

My other halfs battery is flat and needs charging I was just wondering if I can charge it via the cigarette lighter. I know you can with a trickle charge not sure about a normal one. Any ideas?

[Tango]

On some cars the cigarette lighter is switched by a relay......and is only live when the ignition is on. Why not charge it with crock clips on the battery?

[fq-craigus]

No a cig lighter wouldnt have enough amps to get a car going, needs to be onto the battery. Like you say you can trickle charge or maintain through the socket but thats it

[Adam]

On some cars the cigarette lighter is switched by a relay......and is only live when the ignition is on. Why not charge it with crock clips on the battery?

 

I can do Bob but the car is outside and I'll have to run an extension cable out the window to it so I need to keep it dry which is why I wondered about doing it that way maybe the lead will be long enough to go from the battery into the car so I can put the extension lead in there to keep it away from this lovely weather!! I'll give it a go later,cheers guys.

[Guest]

No a cig lighter wouldnt have enough amps to get a car going, needs to be onto the battery. Like you say you can trickle charge or maintain through the socket but thats it

This. I'd have thought it to take days to charge up a car battery through a cigarette lighter...

[Joeman]

check the fuse, see what the rating is.

so long as the fag lighter doesn't disconnect when the ignition is off, and the fuse rating is high enough, you should be able to charge through the fag lighter, but dont try to crank the engine!!

[Guest]

No a cig lighter wouldnt have enough amps to get a car going, needs to be onto the battery. Like you say you can trickle charge or maintain through the socket but thats it

This. I'd have thought it to take days to charge up a car battery through a cigarette lighter...

Ok not days then - just saw the output for cig lighter sockets is usually 8-10 amps so would be about 6hrs.

[fq-craigus]

Yh wouldnt take as long as some may think but they deffo shouldn't be jumped via a cig lighter

[Joeman]

Yh wouldnt take as long as some may think but they deffo shouldn't be jumped via a cig lighter

 

there are plenty of fag-lighter jump start cables about...

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[Stu]

no to jump start

charging is ok with a small charger but anything bigger than a 10 amp charger I wouldnt risk it

why not just connect it to the battery and put everything in the engine bay and close the bonnet too ?

[Adam]

Well after looking I can't find the attachment for the cigarette lighter anyway.. Must've put it somewhere safe!

That's a brilliant idea stu I'll see if I can fit it all in there.

[Stu]

just make sure any of the clips dont earth on the bonnet

[eastanglianbiker]

will it not bump start if there is a little bit of life in battery ?

[Chrissb6]

Hi, do NOT try and charge your motor cycle battery across your car battery or connect it directly to a cig lighter socket in the car.

You have no way of regulating the charge. The output from the car alternator can be as high as 50 amps, should your car battery be in a low state of charge, the cars alternator regulator will sense this and whack out a high charge to the car battery should your bike battery be connected to the same circuit it will get boiled. You need to have a secondary regulator specific to your battery.

A read up here might help you some more.

http://highfields-arc.co.uk/vehicles/auxchg.htm

Read up on how not to do it.

I would go out and get a charger specifically for the bike ie an Optimate charger

[Stu]

Chris he is charging the car not the bike via car

[Chrissb6]

Chris he is charging the car not the bike via car

Same rules apply Stu, you need a spilt charger, needed to do similar with my caravan battery

[Stu]

He is using a battery charger to charge it not the bike or the car

He didn't want to leave the charger out in case it got wet hence the question of the cig lighter he was going to shut it in the car

Bike and car wasn't going to be connected at all

[Adam]

Yeah my bike isn't invovled in this one.. Just a charger and a car battery as stu said. I managed to fit it all in the engine bay and left it on charge for a few hours (4) but I couldn't close the lounge window and it got cold so I took it off charge going back on tomorrow if it doesn't rain again like today.

[Stu]

4 hours should have been more than enough to get the car going! once running it will charge itself on a good run

did you try and start it?

[Adam]

No it's not being used as she hasn't passed her test yet, failed her first attempt and has to wait until January the 16th for the next one!! I bought it for her as her 21st birthday present which fell a few days after her test, but it's been started every few days which has drained the battery

[Stu]

ah right ok then

remove battery lock the car charge it in the house and keep it warm then you wont need to replace it through lack of use

[Adam]

Is it as easy as it is to remove a bike battery? Just remove the clamps on the battery and take it out?

[Stu]

yup

infact its easier on most cars

[ApolloMozart]

ah right ok then

remove battery lock the car charge it in the house and keep it warm then you wont need to replace it through lack of use

 

Some cars act weird if left without the battery for long time. Sometimes the ecu gets lost, sometimes the radio asks for the code, also seen electric windows playing up after battery taken out.

As far as I remember the battery is charged at a rate of 1/10th Amps of it's capacity to start with. So for a 65AH battery the initial charging rate would be 5-6 Amps. This can safely go through the cigarette lighter if it is always connected to the battery.

On another note, if the battery is losing charge that quickly, it may be a sign of ageing, so maybe best to replace it?